Mici denies that there was a previous agreement with the mining company

Minister of Trade and Industry (Mici), staff of Jorge Rivera, he denied the existence of a concession contract with Minera Panamá before signing the contractin response to a request sent by the management’s lawyer, Rigoberto González.

In the press release of Cobra Panamá announcing that it will start the arbitration process, the company wrote that it is doing so in order to defend its rights under the concession contract that the Government signed with it. early this year”.

“We allow ourselves to clarify that Neither the Government of the Republic of Panama nor the Ministry of Trade and Industry signed any legal document called the ‘2023 Concession Agreement’ at the beginning of this year. which gives the concessionaire Minera Panamá, SA, exclusive rights to explore, extract, exploit, benefit, process, refine, transport, sell and commercialize metallic copper mineral,” Mica said in a message sent to attorney González.

According to Minister Rivera’s staff, the mining company wanted to refer to contract law no. 406, in its clause no. 46which provided that any dispute must be settled by international arbitration in accordance with the Arbitration Rules of the International Chamber of Commerce.

The headquarters of this organization is in Miami, Florida, United States of America.

Agreement between the state and Minera Panamá It was approved by the Government Council on June 14 of this yearHowever, uncertainty arose at the end of last year, and the Government stopped the negotiations.

On December 15, 2022, the Cabinet Council ordered the then Minister of Trade, Federico Alfaro, to ordered the company to stop working.

At the end of February, the mine stopped processing mineralsattributing it to the reluctance of the Maritime Administration (AMP) to allow cargo operations in the port of Punta Rincón.

It was on March 8 of this year, when the Government announced the “harmonization of the final text of the concession contract who will manage the long-term operations of the Cobre Panamá project.”

The rest would be history as it was approved by the Cabinet Council, taken to the Comptroller General for approval and to to the National Assembly for ratification.

After these procedures, it would return to the executive branch for adjustments and in less than a week it was approved by the legislature and sanctioned by the President of the Republic. which sparked protests that lasted more than a month.